How Could You? Hall of Shame-Bulgarian Adoptee Tommy Musser case-Child Death Updated
This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.
From Solanco,Pennsylvania, a 17-year-old Bulgarian Adoptee Tommy Musser died on Thursday, July 31,2014.
“A 17-year-old boy accidentally drowned in a bathtub in his Providence Township home on Thursday, a coroner said.
He was Thomas Musser, of 350 Smithville Road, according to Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni. He had “severe developmental delays, both physical and cognitive.”
Musser’s mother was bathing him around 11 a.m. and then “stepped out” of the room for a reason Diamantoni declined to disclose.[Maybe it was to check on all of the other children?]
“The mother left him with a very small amount of water in the bathtub,” Diamantoni said. “Somehow 
, the faucet was turned on. We do not know precisely how it occurred.”
Diamantoni ruled the death accidental and said an autopsy Friday showed Musser died from freshwater drowning.
“There is nothing in the investigation at this juncture to suggest that this is a suspicious death,” Diamantoni stressed.
Diamantoni did not know exactly how long the boy was alone in the tub, calling it “a very brief period.”
A much younger brother discovered Thomas in the bathtub and alerted his mother, who quickly responded and called 911.
EMS provided immediate emergency care to try to resuscitate the boy, state police Trooper Gerard Sauers said. Lancaster County Deputy Coroner Dr. Richard Graff pronounced the boy dead at the home.”
Coroner rules disabled 17-year-old accidentally drowned in bathtub[Lancaster Online 8/1/14 by Ryan Robinson]
The Reece’s Rainbow blog http://theblessingofverity.com/2014/07/with-hearts-that-are-breaking/ has more.
REFORM Puzzle Piece
Update: Thanks to one of readers for the update.Now they are adding another physically disabled child to the family.See http://theblessingofverity.com/2015/07/a-new-chapter/.
Given that Tommy, according to his adoptive mommy, Susanna Musser, was developmentally a 1 year old baby, why isn’t leaving him unsupervised in the bathtub considered NEGLECT?
And given that Tommy died as a direct result of neglect (who lets a 1 yo baby bathe unsupervised??) why isn’t this considered CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE??
This is also the second dead Reece’s Rainbow kid adopted from Bulgaria in as many months — little Adam Mitchell (who also had SN) was adopted from Bulgaria in late 2013 and died all of 7 mos later.
“CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE??” I just don’t know…
This is not like the Adam Mitchell situation. Adam’s death was due to medical issues that had gone untreated far too long in Bulgaria, and there was nothing his adoptive parents could have done.
One difference that leaps out at me immediately is that even if he has the developmental mind of a one year old, he has the body and strength of an older child. I don’t know his exact height, but I do know that when I was about 11-12 I could no longer lie down fully in a bathtub. He also has the muscles and core strength required to be able to sit up even in a slippery bathtub. Again, I don’t know all the details, but I did want to point out that there is an obvious physical difference between leaving a one-year-old and leaving him; when a person begins to drown, they would panic and flail, but a one-year-old might not have sufficient strength to stop it, whereas an older child could easily sit up.
Kyler,
It works both ways– a one year old probably wouldn’t have the strength and leverage to turn on the water to a full flow.
Tommy spent years in a “lying down room”, so I doubt he had the core strength of the average kid his size. He could sit in the tub and play, but it’s not clear whether he could have sat up by himself from a supine position in a slippery bathtub.
The one thing everyone can agree with is that his death was a terrible tragedy. 🙁
The two children you are referring to both came home after years and years of neglect after languishing in orphanages. Both boys were born with severe special needs. Adam Mitchell had many disabilities along with hydrcephalus that had been left untreated for years until he came home. He had surgery monthly to try to relieve his suffering. When it was discerned that he was never going to find relieft from the pain and that nothing else could be done…he wasn’t put through any more painful, useless surgeries and allowed to die with dignity surrounded by his hearbroken family. If you are going to report on things like this…please make sure you report the true facts!
Why does this give me the same bad vibe as Max Shatto? Unattended SN kid suddenly dies? Very suspicious. If this poor child was so disabled, he should never have been left in a tub alone. And what pings my radar is that a sibling found him, NOT the mother, which meant she didn’t go right back in. The only possible good out of this tragedy is that hopefully this collector will not be allowed to collect any more children to neglect.
I checked their blog– Susanna was initially dubious about their ability to handle another severely-disabled child. She even asked members of her church if they thought she and her husband could do this on top of everything else. Unfortunately, she received nothing but encouragement from a team of enablers– including a “pro-adoption” USCIS officer who told her how to massage her financial situation so that she qualified for international adoption.
http://theblessingofverity.com/2012/08/god-of-wonders/
However, pushing numbers around doesn’t give APs additional time, energy, or the ability to be in two places at once. 🙁
I’ve been following Susanna’s blog for a long time – she’s sort of a friend of a friend of a friend, and I work with the disabled so I was interested. I do believe she is hardworking and genuine, but I also believe that she takes on way, way, way too much. It seems to be part of her moral code to try to be superwoman. She seems to think that if she allows herself to be human, she is failing God somehow. Instead, her obsession with doing absolutely everything ended up with her failing those dependent on her – in a horrifically tragic way.
I believe she loved Tommy deeply. But she simply could not juggle all she was trying to juggle, and that in itself is a problem. If someone is not able to do what needs to be done, all the intentions in the world won’t save the situation. Twelve children, many of them small, three with disabilities – something’s got to give. IT was evident from reading her blog that things were crumbling, and that Tommy was the straw breaking that family’s back. She was over her head.
Her support system should have seen this coming and warned them off. Maybe one of them should have adopted Tommy, since it is true that his situation in Bulgaria was horrible and about to become worse. The urge to rescue him was noble. But for the Mussers to do it was simply stupid. Tommy paid the price, but it could have been any of the small children. It was so irresponsible for others to advise them to take on this burden, but unfortunately, they belong to a community who hold the mistaken belief that God gives heroic people more than 24 hours in a day and the ability to function without sleep.
It’s a tricky situation, because Tommy obviously needed to be adopted, and he was loved. I’m glad he got to experience family love – that was the positive of the situation. But it shouldn’t have been that family. It should have been a family that was actually capable of giving him not just love, but the attention without distraction that he needed to survive.
I do hope that the Mussers do not attempt to adopt again. And if they do, I hope they get a resounding no from their evaluators. Susanna needs to take care of the children she already has. If she wants to help those still in places like Pleven, she needs to keep it to spreading awareness and fundraising – she is good at that, and to her credit, she has done a lot of good in that situation. But the children she has now need to come first.
In short, good person with poor judgment = tragedy.
Name,
Re: ‘…unfortunately, they belong to a community who hold the mistaken belief that God gives heroic people more than 24 hours in a day and the ability to function without sleep…”
I agree 100% with your analysis of the situation. Their home study worker has a lot to answer for: She apparently approved the adoption on the strength of the Mussers being godly people with good intentions, without assessing whether or not they could handle a child whose needs were as overwhelming as Tommy’s.
And the adoption agency should have had the sense to stop the adoption when Susanna told them she was pregnant, rather than blithely telling her it wasn’t a problem. A new infant DOES change the ability of the family to care for a new adoptee. At the very least, they should have required a new home study and a new I-800a from the Mussers, reflecting the new situation.
I got the feeling some of her blog posts were begging for help… and her fan club replied with comments applauding her saintliness, rather than offering practical help.
Working with the severely disabled, I know how hard it can be. I only take care of one person, but it’s the kind of person where, if you take your attention off him for a moment, disaster can strike in an instant. I am very sympathetic with how easily things can go wrong when you are caring for someone who can’t care for themselves, and also how impossible it is to be perfectly attentive 100% of the time. Which is why it is irresponsible to deliberately put yourself in position where you know you will not be able to give a reasonable amount of attention to the job.
What a horrible, horrible thing to do to someone, to program them to think that they are unworthy unless they over-extend. My heart hurts for Susanna, for Tommy, for the rest of the family. But here is proof positive that this kind of religious mindset kills. Literally.
The next disaster waiting to happen? Renee Alan’s brood of 9 unrelated high needs SN kids, all of whom were adopted withing a 2 year period:
http://blog.handofhelpinadoption.org/2014/08/i-cant-do-this.html
It’s a stupid, irrespobsible and likely to end badly thing to do.
Carlee,
Re: Hand of Help in Adoption
Do you know if the “Serge” listed in the ‘About Us’ tab is the infamous verbally-abusive Sergei who worked as a facilitator for Reece’s Rainbow?
Also, when Renee Alan states “…Before I became a stay at home, homeschooling mom to our children, I practiced clinical social work…” is she saying that she’s a clinical social worker with the required Master’s Degree plus the additional required training and credentials? Or is she trying to imply that she is, without saying anything legally actionable? Because it’s REALLY hard for me to imagine that a Clinical Social Worker would have pursued the kind of high risk adoptions she has, let alone soft-soaping other PAPs into doing the same.
Yup, he is indeed the infamous Reece’s Rainbow Serge — the in-country facilitator who allegedly threatened Mel Dellanos, halted Shelly Bedford’s bazillionth adoption (well, that’s not actually a bad thing) and terrorized Kari Reilly while she was adopting 2 kids in Ukraine (one of whom, little Victor was shipped off to crisis respite indefintely less than a year later).
Renee is home all day, every day, homeschooling NINE kids, most of whom have SEVERE SN and spend oodles of time in the hospital.
I have no idea what hospital, but I can tell you with 100% certainty they don’t let siblings on the NICU (or most PICU) floors. Too many easily spreadable germs.
So if one of her kids need surgery, what happens to the other 8???
Carlee,
Re: “…if one of her kids need surgery, what happens to the other 8?…”
I suppose she guilt-trips somebody into providing free child care for her. It’s the Rescue Adoption way– pursue risky adoptions that put you one eyelash away from the Catastrophe Curve, then beg for help when the “unpredictable” catastrophe occurs.
What also worries me is that Renee Alan is urging other PAPs to take on risky adoptions, minimizing the potential problems. Maybe Renee Alan is the Adoptee Whisperer, who can handle any number of high-needs kids without strain, but it’s extremely unlikely that the congregation she’s preaching to can do likewise.
I agree and what is really upsetting is everyone is justifying a year of Tommy being with the Musser family verses the 15 he spent at Pleven. Tommy was supposed to have MANY years with a loving family!!!! Not a neglectful one!!!!! And that means ONLY one year!!!!! Susanna took that from him!!!
I agree with all you have commented. I am Susanna Musser. As a reckless faith-filled conservative evangelical Christian, I made extremely life decisions which I now regret. I am now an atheist who is in therapy for PTSD, c-PTSD, and anxiety, and half of my children have been or are also in therapy. I will never again be loyal to any ideology that requires me to deny reality. I do want to say that our children are NOT abused or neglected. They are very well loved and cared for. I was the one who was carrying the bulk of the weight in order to ensure the children’s needs were met, and it led to a near breakdown before it was addressed. It was in my quest to become a healthy human that I realized that what I had been indoctrinated from birth to believe was untrue and actually toxic.
Basically what I thought, and I am a Christian, though not evangelical. Unfortunately, just because you are a Christian and have good intentions doesn’t mean that God will give you superhuman powers. I could tell you several stories from my extended family that demonstrated that. However there is no doubt that the Susannah and the rest of the Musser family need our prayers.
I basically agree .
The problem is, this happens to families with just one child. Or two. And non adopted. Or adopted. So really, what point is to be made here? It’s a sick tragedy whether he is adopted or not. I know a family who lost their 16 month old in a bathtub. Not adopted. One child. It happens. This family doesn’t even rise to the Amanda Unroe level with what amounts to a Bulgarian orphanage in her house. I have no idea why more children didn’t die in her “care”.
No baby (or 17 yo who is developmentally a baby) should ever drown in a bathtub — ever. Period.
The point is that this is a 100% preventable accident.
The point is that a family that didn’t meet the minimum USCIS requirements to adopt yet another kid — well, got a waiver and adopted another kid anyways.
The point is that national homestudy standards would probably prevent tragedies like this.
The point, as another commenter put it, is that Tommy survived 15+ years in a hell-on-earth Pleven Orphanage, left to rot in a crib, with practically zero human interaction, and a SINGLE YEAR with the love/attention/food/care of a forever family!
Not unlike Selah Clanton (who moved/breathed/ate unassisted for 7+ yrs but was rendered comatose in a near-fatal accidebtal drowning a few months after her adoption), Tommy is the rare kid who would probably have been better off (read: NOT DEAD) had he remained in a terrible orphanage.
Technically, the Mussers didn’t get a waiver– a “helpful” USCIS officer told her that “…we apply a family’s assets to their yearly income to come up with the final total…” Per Susanna, this means that “…equity in the home, value of the vehicles and other items of value the family may own, and money in savings and investments…” can be counted as “income”
I have no idea whether that’s how USCIS income eligibility is actually supposed to be calculated or not. I’ve noticed that when people relay what someone else has told them, they tend to drop out conditionals like “you might” and “it’s possible”.
Money in savings and investments seems like a reasonable inclusion if you’re trying to determine if a family can financially support another child. But equity in VEHICLES seems dubious. A family can sell an antique coin collection for emergency funds, because you can do without that. But you NEED a car (or van), so unless you own a prestige vehicle that you can trade in for something reliable but less pricy, I don’t see this as a valid source of income.
There is a long form provided by USCIS that includes calculations for income plus assets to meet the guidelines. There is a short form if your income alone qualifies. Most people qualify by income. There is nothing illegal about using the long form, anymore than it is illegal to need a long form to file your taxes instead of the short form.
Thanks for the clarification.
I agree that Susanna Mosser isn’t on the level of irresponsible APs like Denise Davis.
I feel sympathy for her, because very few busy parents haven’t briefly left small kids unsupervised during a busy moment. 99.9% of the time, nothing bad happens, and the child is fine. It’s the .01% of cases that are heartbreakers.
Yet we all know that if Susanna Musser had been a poor, unwed mother rather than a saintly Rescue Adopter she’d been criminally charged for her son’s death.
http://www.jdnews.com/news/local/update-mother-charged-in-child-s-death-1.134510
No surprise that it took this blog less than 24 hours to hear about Tommy. What about children who have NOT been adopted that have been abused?! I distinctly recall leaving a link to a mother who SAT ON TWO OF HER CHILDREN IN A FULL BATHTUB while they fought for their lives ; it went unnoticed by this typically keen blog. A social worker dropped the ball in that situation, too. Come on, ladies. Give the Musser Family some space and focus on TRULY abusive families. Oh, and in case you need the link, here it is:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/07/laurel-schlemmer-drowned-sons_n_5106161.html
Yes,it no surprise.Many people emailed me about this. “What about children who have NOT been adopted that have been abused?!”Ummm… That is just Not covered in this blog.That’s why .This blog is for Foster care and adoption .Things that are Not usually covered by media.
Thank you for your compassion! I am NOT related to–nor do I personally KNOW the Musser family but as a fellow Christian, I DO know their hearts! Susanna and her family would NEVER intentionally harm a child and are absolutely DEVASTATED over this ACCIDENT! NO ONE–as you pointed out, with one child , two or a dozen, has eyes in the back of their head. An accident can happen that leads to death after tucking a child in for the night because no one sits there watching their child intently 24 hrs a day. It’s just not possible!
One person implied that since another child found him, Susanna must have been out of the room for some time. Does that person know how ridiculous that is? Who’s to say younger sibling didn’t wander into the bathroom within a few minutes of mom leaving and just before she came back in? The point is, NONE of us know what happened–we weren’t there!
And to imply or accuse a loving, dedicated family who has moved mountains to adopt children no one else looked twice at and who FOUGHT to get them services, therapies and give them the best lives possible of abuse or neglect? THAT is the criminal act! I’d call it slander in fact!
Lori,
Re: “…NO ONE–as you pointed out, with one child , two or a dozen, has eyes in the back of their head. An accident can happen that leads to death after tucking a child in for the night because no one sits there watching their child intently 24 hrs a day. It’s just not possible!…”
This is true. Yet unwed mothers and poor parents aren’t granted the same grace when a tragic accident happens as Rescue Adoption parents.
The sad fact that Adoption Ministries boosters ignore is that AP’s time, energy, resources and health are not unlimited. “Love for orphans” doesn’t mean that they’re capable of adding any number of children to their family and care for them well without something giving.
In Susanna Musser’s case, she actually ASKED friends if they thought she could handle this adoption. But how could they know? They could only assure her that she was doing a good job with the kids she had NOW. They couldn’t say whether adopting another high-needs older child would be the straw which broke the camel’s back.
As is, the myth of the “Global Orphan Crisis” puts pressure on soft-hearted parents to continue pursuing additional adoptions without limits under the presumption that “God wants this adoption, and He doesn’t put more on us than we can handle” or until they reach the point that they CAN’T cope any longer and tragedy strikes. Call it the “Peter Principle” of Rescue Adoption.
Okay, the sibling, another unattended child. And we are not talking about just a regular child!! We are talking about a child with significant needs!! And until those parents who are responsible to move mountains to get the child the much needed therapies that many disabled children face getting everyday. They should be smart enough to know NOT to leave a significantly disabled child in the bath tub for a few minutes because that is all it takes!! Quit making excuses and start holding the family accountable for their actions!!! No matter where their so called “hearts” are??? This child deserved supervision in the bathtub and obviously he wasn’t worthy enough to get it by Susanna Musser standards. The other children where more important to attend too.
How can you know the hearts of the Musser family, especially the mom who left the child alone to drown?
Jeremiah 17: 9 says “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
It’s not “slander” to discuss the known facts of the case, (thanks to the mommy blogger who put it all out there.)
Whether Tommy’s death was an accident or not, Susanna was willfully negligent. It’s not rocket science that you don’t leave a small child (or someone with the cognitive/physical abilities of a small child) unsupervised in any amount of water. Not even for a second, let alone leave the room. An experienced mother of 12 should have known that.
While I can appreciate the Musser’s motivation to rescue vulnerable orphans, I think that they have overburdened themselves.
But no matter how diligent you are – accidents happen. Are all accidents preventable? Sure!
…in theory.
…in hindsight.
…with perfect prediction.
…with luck.
Do I think that having 12 children, 3 with SN and homeschooling exactly how many of them has to be overwhelming for a single person? Oh for sure.
Do I think that they have overburdened themselves? Yup.
Do I think a child drowning in a bath tub is preventable? Yes I do.
But do I think it was an accident? Yes. Preventable? Cf. above. In theory, all accidents are fully preventable had you known they would happen (you could have left 30 seconds later and would not have been hit by are car etc.).
In hindsight they shouldn’t have adopted Tommy. He might still be dead by now but the internet wouldn’t know and wouldn’t consider it their fault.
In hindsight their friends and family shouldn’t have supported this adoption.
In hindsight they should have considered sending their school-aged children to school instead of homeschooling as that would have given her more time to care for the kids at home (and herself).
In hindsight they should have asked for more (professional) help, gotten a nanny (which they likely couldn’t afford of course), asked a girl next door to aid with child care.
In hindsight someone should have stopped them to adopt with a baby on the way and many little ones at home.
In hindsight.
In theory.
But they got into it over their heads and when they realized, it was too late.
I really hope they will not run off to Eastern Europe again to “fill the gap that Tommy’s loss left” or because “Tommy told them in a vision/dream to rescue another child”.
But.
In the end, it doesn’t matter.
They did adopt Tommy.
Tommy died.
They lost a child.
A child they loved.
In an accident.
They hurt.
As they are not telling what exactly happened I actually think that a sibling might have been supposed to be watching Tommy, possibly a sibling that was close to him and might have been watching him in the bath regularly. That happens in big families. Siblings watch after each other. Drownings can happen so, so quickly. Children can drown in the time it takes to get a towel out of the closet in the hallway. The usually reliable sibling that watched him might have run off to do whatever kids do (get a toy, get a towel, help another sibling, get a drink, get their shoes). But really, if that was they case I would fully understand why they would never tell anyone.
Re: “… In theory, all accidents are fully preventable had you known they would happen (you could have left 30 seconds later and would not have been hit by are car etc.)…”
No, not leaving a small child in a bathtub unattended is a basic safety rule that’s well-known in the general population– and certainly by people who’ve been through pre-adoptive training. Developmentally, Tommy was a one-year-old pre-toddler, and thus should never have been left alone.
Re: “…Children can drown in the time it takes to get a towel out of the closet in the hallway…”
No, it takes three minutes for a child to drown. You can grab a towel from the hallway closet in seconds, while remaining in earshot at all times. I just timed myself in my 1,200 square foot house in which the linen closet is at the opposite end of the house from the computer room, and I was back with two towels in 31 seconds. (Our linen closet is right outside the bathroom, so that wouldn’t have been a fair test.)
Re: “…I actually think that a sibling might have been supposed to be watching Tommy…”
At the time the accident happened, the oldest neurotypical child in the house was eight years old– and newspaper reports do list him as the one who found Tommy.
He wasn’t old enough to be tasked with supervising such a severely-disabled child. Kids that age get distracted and forget what they’re supposed to be doing. This is normal and to be expected– and precisely why eight-year-olds shouldn’t be assigned chores that are literally life and death.
The Musser tragedy exemplifies precisely why older siblings shouldn’t be counted as additional “caregivers” in a home study. The teenagers were all elsewhere when this happened. Nor SHOULD other kids be expected to forgo developmentally-appropriate outings in order to be on hand to “help” their parents raise their own siblings.
Home study workers who factor in the existing children’s unpaid labor when calculating whether PAPs can care for another child are engaging in professional malpractice, and should suffer severe legal and professional penalties.
Don’t worry anyone, they have a fund set up and are asking for $5000, of course they didn’t even have to pay for their adoption in the first place. Can’t they take the money out of Katie’s care fund?
http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/tommy-s-funeral-costs/212871
Actually, they did NOT set up this fund, nor did the family ask for this money. Concerned and caring friends of the family set it up. In fact, when Susanna was asked about what people who want to offer help and support can do, she shared about another adoptive family in need and asked for support to go there. This is a horribly sad accident and vilifying a family who was trying their best to give children a better life does nothing to help this situation or other children in need.
Hmmmm, so the concerned and caring friends couldn’t take up a donation privately?? I’m sure their church could of came together and helped. Yet I’ve noticed the asking cap has grown from $5000 to $7000 now. I guess they have to take full advantage of fundraising even in Tommy’s death. They should get their figures right whoever is fundraising for them. It doesn’t seem very ethical to keep raising the amount.
Okay, now this really ticks me off, but the sweet Adeye is saying that their funeral expenses did not include a “headstone”?!! I have been included in a few funeral’s lately where head stones are ALWAYS mentioned and talked about when addressing the final burial!! It seems like these people are using “God” to play on those who follow their blogs!! These people need to be turned in, capitalizing on a disabled child’s death!!!!!!!! And if it’s Pleven related then set up a darn memorial fund in his name separate!!
The Pleven Project doesn’t yet have 501c3 tax status yet — sure hoping folks aren’t expecting tax deductions/receipts!
If the Mussers did NOT need/want money, all they would have to do is inform the thoughtful person who set up the youcaring site to take it down + return the $$ to the donors!!
Then again, the Museers had a paypal set up for “Tommy + Katie’s Care fund” at the top right of their theblessingofverity.com blog — a CARE FUND.
because they couldn’t actually afford to CARE for the adopted kids EVERYDAY NEEDS without other people’s money!
Their mom did not want to set up a fund specifically to avoid reactions like this. She asked instead for all donations to go to Pleven and to help orphans who are still living in abandonment. Her friends urged her to set up a fund because there are people who truly care about her family and mourn for their loss.
Except for the fact that Susanna is ACCEPTING MONEY. She could have DECLINED the CASH.
She could have DECLINED to ask for even MORE cash!
It’s no secret that the family has been struggling since Tommy was adopted. Susanna has posted about how challenging things have been several times, how much time and effort and attention he required and how frustrating it was.
It’s not that parents never leave bio kids or only children in the tub, or that these children never drown in the water. It’s that the Mussers set up a situation that was extremely likely to result in injury or worse to one of the many children in their home, especially the children with significant special needs, and didn’t act to minimize the risks.
Other than not having pursued Tommy’s adoption in the first place, how could the Mussers have “taken action to minimize the risks”?
This isn’t a rhetorical question; I’m always interested in discussing ways to prevent the next tragedy. Besides the obvious step of not putting Tommy in the bathtub when there’s only one adult in the house, that is.
There are so many regrets and should-have’s after an unexpected tragedy like Tommy’s. I know that most bathing of little ones is not planned and is just a necessary step in cleaning up another mess… none of this was wanted. Let’s pray for the family. May Tommy’s memory be eternal.
I was thinking less about minimizing bathing-specific risks and more about general safety level. Lots of children with little supervision, kids who need 1:1 for ADL and one adult at home don’t mix well. Nobody predicted that Tommy would drown in the bathtub, but it was a household ripe for an accident, injury or other tragedy of some sort.
But don’t we want honesty and transparency from adoptive families? Is this blog NOT set up to give real and true accounts of the realities of adoption, not just the “rainbow” and butterflies effect? What do you people want? You say you want ethics and honesty, but then the moment someone IS honest… You throw your narsassistic book at them. It is important for PAP’s to read that adoption has ups and it has downs… That some families go about with no hiccups and others struggle. That is real, that is raw, that is ethical.
How about families who are honest enough with themselves not to give in to the pressure and take on more kids than they can handle?
The Mussers had no insurance — but rather a religious exemption from Obamacare!
http://theblessingofverity.com/2011/12/caring-for-katie-q-a/
What ever happened to the concept of innocence until proven guilty??
KB,
First of all, this is a forum to discuss problems in adoption and group care, not a court of law. So far, I think only two posters have suggested that Susanna Musser should face legal charges for Tommy’s death.
I’m kind of torn myself. On one hand, it was obvious on the blog that she loved Tommy with all her heart, and has to be in agony now. And has been pointed out before, it’s literally impossible for parents to physically watch their kids 24/7. People DO have to sleep sometime.
On the other hand, I know that if she was a poor, non-white mother, Susanna would probably have been arrested and all her other kids taken into foster care by now. She DID leave a child she knew was mentally a small child alone in a bathtub unsupervised for long enough for him to suffer fatal injury.
However, my preferred “fix” wouldn’t be criminal charges against Susanna Musser, but to grant ALL parents– regardless of race, religion, socioeconomic level, gender, sexual orientation, and marital status– the same willingness to admit that sometimes tragic accidents just HAPPEN right during the few minutes that a parent’s attention is elsewhere. And perhaps such tragedies don’t necessarily merit criminal charges.
Though of course, a thorough investigation needs to be done WHENEVER a child dies before a decision to “hold harmless” is made.
replying to: “On the other hand, I know that if she was a poor, non-white mother, Susanna would probably have been arrested and all her other kids taken into foster care by now.”
Seriously? Are you really going there? There are MANY mothers of MANY races that have their children taken from them. Let’s not throw that “race” card to get emotions involved, that serves nobody’s agenda but the haters.
It’s not being a “hater” to note the absolutely true fact that parents of lower socioeconomic class lose their kids disproportionately more frequently than parents like the Mussers for the same– or lesser- misdeeds. That IS relevant to discussing reform in adoption and foster care.
In fact, if their kids are young enough to be attractive prospects for the foster/adopt program, they can be snatched for no wrongdoing whatsoever, just for the judgement that the kids are at risk for harm with their poor biological parents. Then they can be fast-tracked for severance of parental rights. Call it the BabyScoop Method of the New Millennium.
It’s statistics. There are disproportionately high levels of children of color in foster care.
The racism in the legal & child welfare systems are very well documented.
There was no innocent until proven guilty in this case. The fact is she left a severely disabled child in the bath tub ALONE!!! Whether it may have been a few minutes or five minutes!!! For those of us with special needs kiddos, most of us know it only takes a few seconds for something to go horribly wrong. Susanna must of thought she was exempt from that or since Tommy was getting a bath at around 11am he must of had one of his diarrhea incidents and she just didn’t care since I’m sure he must of messed up the whole family outing schedule.
I know from Susanna herself that she got health insurance before adopting Tommy. I’ve also personally used Samaritan Ministries as well as insurance like United Healthcare. Samaritan Ministries actually did a better job of covering our medical needs than United Healthcare does.
But what the hell does that have to do with this situation anyway? No matter what form of heatlh care coverage, they did everything they could to take care of Tommy. He wasn’t medically neglected or neglected in any other way. He was in school. Had carers coming into the house to help. Was seeing doctors and specialists. What bearing at all does health insurance have to do with it?
Some of you people are just vultures. Big hulking disgusting birds of prey hovering around waiting to devour people in their weakest moments. Though I guess this blog specializes in being adoption vultures as was pointed out above. It’s simply NOT ABOUT caring about accidents or deliberate harm happening to children. It’s about placing all blame possible on adoptive parents. Because dammit, if you can’t stay awake 24/7 and keep your eyes on all your children at all times and have the absolute best income and medical coverage then you should have effing left those kids to rot in a crib for a few years longer.
Of course never mind the fact that Pleven had less hands and attention trained on Tommy or another child there than he had with the Mussers at all times. He was just safely secured in a cage never needing an actual bath or never getting to leave the orphanage to actually go anywhere. And lets just ignore the fact that Pleven had less medical funds for Tommy than the Mussers did. And in every possible way invested less time, care and necessary medical attention on Tommy.
What reeeally matters is that if he’d only been left in his cage maybe just maybe he’d still be alive today….in his cage…in Pleven…in almost total medical and psychological neglect. Yeah, that’s totally better.
Vultures.
15+ years of neglect and substandard care did NOT kill Tommy.
Just over a year as a Musser kid DID!
Had Tommy remained in Pleven, he’d probably still be alive.
Ironic, dontchathink ?!??
No, if Tommy wasn’t adopted, he would’ve been placed with adults in a warehouse that we wouldn’t keep our dogs in. The chances of him surviving in a totally unsupervised setting with mentally disabled adults is minimal at best.
Was this the ideal setting for Tommy? It was the most ideal setting he would ever have. At least he knew love during the time with the Mussers, and he was not abused or mistreated. Yes, it is tragic. All accidents are tragic. There are very few among us who are perfect. Please go after the truly abusive foster/adoptive homes and leave the Mussers alone.
We report both abuse AND neglect. We are not ‘going after’ the Mussers.
Colleen Novit is pimping out 6 Bulgarian kids from Pleven, again. On her blog:
iwillcometoyou-john14-18.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-six-we-left-behind.html
The 2 she’s in the midst of adopting SIMULTANEOUSLY adopting 2 unrelated high needs SN OUT OF BIRTH ORDER kids from Pleven… where Tommy came from!
Because a mom with 4 littles totally needs an extremely aggressive 10 yo with DS + a dumpling with CP to complete her family.
Hopefully she won’t be like Susanna Musser, wtih SO many things to do, IMPORTANT thigns to do that one of the kidlets can drown in the tub and it be an ‘oopsie’ as opposed to A HORRIBLE CRIME OF NEGLECT BY AN AWFUL MOMMY!!
According to Susannah’s blog, she only purchased the health insurance for herself.
She asked for money on the internet for the Bulgarian children because the family couldn’t actually afford them. At the same time he did get a lot of free care from the Shriners.
No matter how you slice it, Tommy is dead because of neglect. Just because he had a hard life in the orphanage doesn’t mean it’s ok that he came to America and was left alone to drown in a bathtub.
Neglect is neglect, here or in Bulgaria.
Rally, you deliberately changed, added to, and left out important parts of the original article in order to make this sound as if the parents were at fault. You are despicable and cruel. Go grind your axe somewhere else!!! Find the reason for your suspicious nature, and deal with the real reason instead of taking it out on hurting, grieving people you don’t know. Stop making assumptions, when you have no idea of their life, motives or anything else. Anyone who judges motives is a liar; you don’t know unless you’re in their head. Honestly, the world would be a much better place without people like you spouting off.
I did Not! deliberately change the article!I will allow you to call me “despicable and cruel”. I think what Susanna did was despicable and cruel!Cruel!Cruel!Whatever!
I’m sick on the stomach after reading the awful, uncaring comments from people who have no understanding or Godly love in their hearts!! I’ve followed Susanna Musser’s blog for a long time and have deeply admired them. ONLY true love would enable them to go through so much to bring truly, neglected children to a happy, caring home! If you have looked at her blog, you would have to be blind not to see the happiness and love RADIATING from the home. I see no way in how this blog HELPS…it is simply a place to VENT! I realize I am also venting, but how could I not?? I stumbled upon this site and still can hardly believe what I’ve been reading! I’m also an adoptive mother who also makes many mistakes. (I suppose you all are perfect?) This world needs peacemakers, not troublemakers… And, another thing, sweet Tommy had more love and care bestowed upon him in one year than all his 16 previous years combined. Thank God for caring families like the Mussers.
“Godly love in their hearts”?*FacePalm*
There is a video on YouTube of him in the bathtub a year ago. He was plenty capable of sitting there for a bit……
The YouTube video also showed that he was plenty capable of reaching the water controls, too… which is why leaving him unsupervised in the tub was a bad idea.
I’m not hating on Susanna Musser– she was apparently alone with the younger and/or severely disabled kids, trying to get them ready for an outing without assistance from another adult. Under pressure, she made a bad decision… and tragedy was the result.
That’s what I don’t understand. How in the world did he drown when he was quite capable of sitting up?
And no one heard water running? And if the water was running to the point it could not be heard how long did it take for the bathtub to fill up to the point it was an issue for Tommy to drown??
He probably lost his balance and couldn’t right himself. Maintaining sitting is easier than getting back to sitting in a slippery tub, and it’s easier to tip over and end up on your back/side/stomach if you’re moving around in water, moving soap and faucets etc.
This is a terrible tragedy but the point remains that this child is dead because he was adopted into this family. No amount of Godly love or whatever unicorns of the Adoption Bunny brigade have to say will undo the fact that this child is dead because of a tragic error of judgment. The bigger story is to ensure that tragedies like this don’t happen again. And the only way to do that is to ensure that families with many SN children have adequate help and resources so all children get their needs met. To never ever downplay the difficulties of the daily care for these children. To leave the I Must Save the Children mentality out of it. And to never ever leave a child in a tub unattended.
Reading her blog, you get the feeling that Susanna Musser doesn’t feel entitled to say “No” to additional burdens placed upon her time and energy, or even ask for the resources she needs to carry those burdens. She doesn’t even want to ask her husband for a larger house, lest his feelings get hurt about not being a better provider!
http://theblessingofverity.com/2014/01/this-world-is-not-my-home-im-just-a-passin-thru/
If the USCIS considers the family income per number of children before approving an adoption in order to insure that the PAPs can financially provide for new adoptees, why can’t they consider whether the PAPs can physically care for and supervise that number of kids before granting approval? Such a calculation should factor in the total number of kids, their chronological ages, their developmental ages, and any other factors requiring additional care like feeding pumps.
Oh, and getting pregnant after your USCIS approval has been granted should mandate a re-figuring of the family’s finances and existing dependency needs to see if the family still qualifies! And the home study needs to be redone as well, since another baby materially changes whether the PAPs can managing caring for the new adoptee.
For all of you saying it would have been better for Tommy to remain in his “crib” in Pleven, who can know if he would have lived out this past year without being adopted? He was in terrible medical shape and in imminent danger of being transferred to an adult institution. It is possible that he could have lived longer without being adopted, but it is just as possible that he could have died sooner, and without having known the love of a family to boot.
As an adult, I am able to choose the conditions in which I live. I know what death is and that one day it will come to me. I would far rather live knowing I had just one more day left with love and family and joy than live knowing I was going to spend the (expected) 40 remaining years of my life confined to a small space with no one to talk to and nothing to look at but the same 4 walls. Tommy couldn’t choose for himself. While I am sad that he passed away so soon, I rejoice for him that he had someone to call “Mama,” and that he was able to know the joy that comes from being wanted before his brief life was over.
Susanna did in a little over a year, what Pleven couldn’t do in 16 years. Who would you say was the more neglectful?????? Susanna I would think!!! She gave Tommy the ultimate ending to neglect……….DEATH!!!
Jennifer – You’re suggesting Tonmy is better off DEAD!! Dead!!
I do not rejoice that Tommy drowned in a bathtub, alone and scared because his mommy had soooo many important things to do that making sure her SON DID NOT DIE was low on her priority list.
Susanna Musser, well, she can explain to Jesus how letting her son DROWN IN A BATHTUB was the LOVING thing to do!
Carlee,
I don’t think Susanna Musser put Tommy low on her priority list: I think she made a bad decision under pressure. Her husband and all the older kids were elsewhere, and she was trying to get all the “younger” kids (which seemingly was gauged by developmental rather than chronological age) ready to go out somewhere by herself.
Tommy reportedly loved playing in the bathtub, and based on the YouTube vid, she usually WAS in the bathroom monitoring a child who seemed happily and safely engaged playing in the tub.
I do agree that it’s mindboggling to read avid right-to-lifers making a “Quality of Life” argument to explain away a child’s tragically avoidable death.
Jennifer,
You’re setting up a false dichotomy– EITHER Tommy dies in a lying down room OR he’s adopted by PAPs with too many high-demand and/or young kids to supervise them properly.
The existing charities ‘The Pleven Project’ and ‘Hope for Orphans’ could be expanded– and freed from their tacit mandate to promote international adoptions over their stated goals. This would give the disabled better lives without putting them through the trauma of an international translocation. You could work with Bulgarian activists for the disabled to recruit in-country foster and adoptive parents– and encourage them by promising all health-care and adaptive devises needed would be provided free of charge.
Short-term, Susanna could have continued looking for another family to adopt Tommy. She didn’t have to limit herself to American PAPs; there are countries with an adoption cut-off age of 18, which would have bought Tommy some breathing room.
There are lots of potential options once you think outside the “box” of “Adoption by American PAPs from an Approved Denomination or nothing!”
Jennifer, Tommy was lucky to find a family, unfortunately his mother forgot about him in the bath!!!!! Not so lucky after all was he?
Tommy was about to “age out” i.e. reach the age where if he was not adopted, he would be placed in a mental institution: a life sentence of torture.
Don’t believe me? Check it out–
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26332429/ns/dateline_nbc-international/t/serbias-horrific-institutions-relic-past/#.U-REuGPwqX4
Icare –
Tommy was adopted from the Pleven Orphanage, which was hell on earth. Literally. Tommy was 15 and came home weighing something like 24 lbs (the size of a 2 yo). His adopted sister Katie came home at age 9, weighing 9 lbs (the size of a newborn).
He had SURVIVED a lifetime of torture by the time Susanna adopted him.
The Serbian mental institution you linked to? Is no worse than Pleven Orphanage used to be.
Icare,
Tommy was about to “age out” as far as American immigration law went, not in terms of Bulgarian adoption law.
Some countries allow international adoptions up to age 18. Or a drive could have been made to find Tommy a home in-country. OR to improve the quality of care for disabled adults in Bulgaria.
To her credit, Susanna Musser HAS been instrumental in bringing to international attention the abuse inflicted on Special Needs children in the Pleven orphanage AND to get the director responsible brought to justice. She’s also raised funds for more humane treatment in such institutions.
She just didn’t have the logistical ability to handle that many children, especially considering the additional care the disabled ones required.
There were 1,027 accidental drownings per 100,000 children in the US in 2010. That correlates to a mortality rate of 1.2%, which means 1 out of every 100 children will drown accidentally.
http://www.childdeathreview.org/nationalchildmortalitydata.htm
Any child’s untimely death is tragic, but statistically speaking, accidents do and will happen, even to those children whose parents are fastidious about safety. Every single person on earth is human and every single one of us will make mistakes in judgement, even adoptive parents who you all feel need to be held to such a high standard that they aren’t EVER allowed to have lapses in judgement. Unfortunately, statistics prove that adoptive parents WILL make mistakes, and all your caterwauling and complaining to the contrary won’t change that fact.
The simple truth is, the death of an adopted child is no more or less tragic than the death of a biological child. Biological parents make tragic mistakes, and adoptive parents make tragic mistakes. An adoptive parent should not be held to any higher standard than a biological parent. A parent is a parent is a parent. Period.
While I sympathize greatly with the Musser family, the statistics above are not true – 1.2% of children do not die of drowning.
1.2 children out of every 100,000 die from drowning.
1,027 of approximately 45,000 deaths were from drowning, among a population of over 83 MILLION children.
So the rate of drowning is 1027 out of 83,000,000….or 1.2 out of every 100,000.
Accidents happen. How hard it is when their consequences are so devastating. The fact that Tommy was finally LOVED and cared for and part of a family…shouldn’t be lost on anyone. If I was lying in a crib for 16 or so years, unloved and severely neglected, I would be glad to finally be cherished and to belong and to receive love, a family, affection, gentleness, mental stimulation, sunshine, friendship, etc. Wouldn’t you, too? Why cast such a bitter eye at something that is a tragedy…can you imagine if you ever fell short of perfect and had to live with it for the rest of your life? Who among us is perfect? Why the meanness? This child was loved. This family is devastated.
Broken-hearted,
It’s not “meanness” to state that Susanna had too many high-needs kids to take care at the time the drowning occurred, and that therefore the Mussers should NOT have been approved to adopt Tommy.
It’s a legitimate topic of discussion for adoption reform because we’re seeing too many bad outcomes in adoption. PAPs are supposed to have been cleared by a home study process that shows that they are able to provide good care for the children they adopt. That means that they’re not only “good people”, but that they have the resources needed to supervise and meet the needs of the child they want to adopt IN ADDITION TO THE OTHER CHILDREN IN THE FAMILY.
It doesn’t serve anyone’s best interests to approve home studies for families who aren’t capable of shouldering the burden that they good-heartedly want to take on. Not Tommy’s. Not Susanna’s, who’s got to live with the guilt and grief for the rest of her life for one misjudgment.
Not the other kids who were present, who are undoubtedly traumatized by their brother’s death. (Especially if the reason Susanna left the bathroom was because they were acting up: Talk about survivor guilt!) Not her husband, who’ll undoubtedly always believe that if he hadn’t taken Susanna’s “support team” (the older kids) away from her, the accident wouldn’t have happened. Not the older kids themselves, who’ll undoubtedly believe the same thing.
The “rubber stamp” home studies have to stop. Home study agencies need to suffer severe personal and business penalties when a child dies, is abused, or is disrupted by PAPs they approved. It took lawsuits to get adoption agencies to stop concealing potential FASD from adoptive parents. We need something similar to get home study agencies to take their responsibilities seriously.
This adoptive parent DID make a tragic mistake. The sad reality she, Susanna lives in “small town America”. Did we note in the article that the police “wouldn’t disclose” how many children she had? (WHY NOT? She has a public blog and proudly touts how many children she has!). Shameful. It takes, on average, TWO TO THREE MINUTES for a child to drown as a result of freshwater drowning. http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/79/2/214.full.pdf That means that this mother, according to the facts, left this child for AT MINIMUM two minutes. The article states that the child was left in a small amount of water, the tub was “somehow” turned back on (I guess the child did it?) and then tub filled sufficiently to submerse the child (who has CP and would probably flop down pretty quickly) and then the child had to be drowned enough to where he could not be revived by the time he was discovered. That doesn’t take seconds. It takes MINUTES. This woman 1) didn’t hear the tub running (???) and then was gone for such a long time, he had time to fill the tub enough to fall under the water and be drowned.
I’m glad he had a year of love and I don’t agree he would have been well served in the Bulgarian orphanage where he was. But even accidents can be investigated for neglect. This isn’t the Clantons even…they had 2 children in a stroller and the stroller got away in an almost freak accident. This is a situation where the MOTHER LEFT HER CHILD – and left him long enough to DIE. This situation will never be prosecuted by CPS because of where she lives and who she is. That is wrong on every level. This mother should be bereft because SHE KILLED HER CHILD. SHE LEFT THE ROOM – not for seconds, but for MINUTES! No one does that with a child who is essentially a one year old in a 17 year old body. There are stories of freshwater drownings where a child will pull out the pool ladder and get into the pool. The parent doesn’t know, the child drowns. That happens. But when you CHOOSE to leave the room on a child who needs constant surveillance, not even for mere seconds but for minutes…you’re so far away you can’t hear the water running in your bathroom because you’re going out on an errand…there needs to be charges. And there never will be. You don’t have to be perfect – you just have to be CAREFUL!
I’ve followed susannahs blog since she was thinking of adopting Katie. I must admit I had reservations about the amount of work she was taking on then but she seemed to cope and the family seemed to thrive. However, when she began the process of adopting Tommy she got unexpectedly pregnant again and between the lines I read that she was now down the rabbit hole with no way out of the adoption. When they got Tommy it was clear that they were not prepared for the amount of care that he needed and that they were suffering post adoption trauma (something she herself admitted to). It was apparent that they were not coping and I always felt so sorry for the other kids who could not possibly get enough attention from their mother. When I read about this accident my first reaction was almost one of relief that this burden she obviously felt would now be lifted. It’s incredibly sad but I think she took on far too much at her own expense and that of her other kids. I too query how a child can die in the bath without supervision – but assuming it was a horrible accident let’s hope that she now concentrates on her other 18839332 kids.
To me, it’s like letting the seriosuly mentally ill adopt. Actually worse. These people deny and defy reality because of their belief that God is directing their actions and “showing” them things using these disabled foreign orpahns. It’s just beyond bizzare. And tragic.
Even when they don’t end up dead, they end up all over the internet as testaments to the adoptive parents “godliness”. It’s not about the orphans being actual people. They are something sent by God to “teach” the adoptive parent about whatever crazy thing they decide they needed to learn.
These people are simply too delusional and dangerous to be allowed near vulnerable children.
Agreed that orphans are PEOPLE, not object lessons. I get that it can be comforting to believe that God has a plan, but there’s a problem when people start using that as an excuse for their own misjudgements.
I also blame all the people who, instead of telling Susannah to take care of herself (I sent her an e-mail to that effect) and not to try to do so much, kept telling her how wonderful she was and how much they admired her–which would just encourage her to push herself harder. And also her philosophy about “dying to herself”–the more she made herself suffer, the more godly she was. I was brought up by a mother with that mentality (albeit in a more moderate form), so I know all about it. She meant well, and in my view she was only guilty of biting off more than she could chew, but “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Pray for her.
That’s the impression I got reading the comments on one of Susanna Musser’s blog posts. The woman is confessing that she’s in crisis, she can’t handle it all, all but explicitly begging for help. And the responses she gets in the comments? A bunch of fangirl gushing about how wonderful Susanna is for doing all this and enjoining her to stay the course. 🙁
http://theblessingofverity.com/2014/01/so-you-wanna-go-back-to-pleven/
Yes, these last two comments nail it. Collectors are mentally ill, in my opinion. But the adoption racket is full of similarly crazy people – agencies who are enablers because they don’t care how screwed up their clients are as long as the money is green, saviors who think God is going to magically heal their disabled children (not), and the media who writes all these sob-story profiles about what saints these people are. They need psychiatric treatment, NOT MORE CHILDREN. Come back to this site in 10 years when these neglected children of collectors are adults and see how well they’re faring. It’s NOT FAIR to them!!!!
I have followed the blog since they brought Katie home. When Tommy came home, I read for awhile but could hear the desperation in Susanna’s writing. She was overwhelmed with Tommy’s care and it was having a great affect on her mentally. She was crying out for help, and it did not seem as if she was getting any. It was too much, and I worried for her and the family. I stopped reading for many months. Tonight I decided to check on the blog again and was shocked to hear of Tommy’s death. Honestly, I logged in half expecting they might have found another placement for him because of the struggle Susanna was going through caring for him. I was very sad to hear of Tommy’s death, but shocked at how he died. In the photos, you can see that Tommy has little upper body control. He is always strapped with shoulder straps in a wheelchair. Why would she leave him alone in a bathtub? It makes no sense.
At the time Tommy’s death took place, Susanna’s husband and all the older kids (except Tommy and Katie) were elsewhere, leaving Susanna on her own to get 8 kids under the developmental level of nine years old ready to go on a family outing. Three of the 8 were on the developmental level of toddlers– Benjamin, Verity, and Katie. That’s in addition to Tommy, who was functioning on about the 12 month level or so, though he wasn’t ambulatory. And Tommy was prone to sudden “explosions” of severe diarrhea.
Nobody can handle that by themselves– nobody! Susanna shouldn’t have ever been put in that situation. The home study worker approved the adoption expecting Susanna would have the older kids around to help her, without considering that there might be times when Susanna was without this “labor force”.
If I had to guess, Susanna may have been bathing Tommy when a situation arose with one of the “toddlers”. She’d mentioned that Katie had a habit of pulling home electronics systems over in an earlier blog post, so maybe something like that happened, dangerous enough that an adult was needed to sort it. So she detailed the eight-year-old to “keep an eye on Tommy” while she dealt with the situation. But the eight-year-old got distracted by the excitement going on, and his attention drifted for just long enough for tragedy to strike. This would explain why the eight-year-old was the one to “find” Tommy.
I wouldn’t blame the eight-year-old if that’s what happened– he’s only EIGHT. I don’t even blame Susanna; I’m sure that she wouldn’t have left Tommy for anything but a compelling reason. She was trying to do the best she could under stress, and she knew Tommy WAS capable of staying upright and entertaining himself in the bath for a while. I blame her husband a little; he should have made sure Susanna had adult help with her before taking her “staff” away from her.
But the person I really blame is the IDIOT HOME STUDY WORKER! She approved the adoption saying “I know how large families work”– i.e., using other kids to make up the staff:child ratio. Not only is this hideously unfair to the older kids themselves (not to mention the younger kids) but it’s a system which doesn’t have any slack in it for unexpected schedule changes. She should lose her certification for this!
Oh, and the whole Rescue Adoption meme, which creates an artificial hysteria to “save” kids and blithely disregards best practices guidelines for child placement.
Another horrific detail about Tommy’s stupid, pointless utterly preventable death:
Her daughters Verity & Katie WATCHED HIM DIE in the tub:
“Katie and Verity were both on their potties and witnessed the trauma, although they seem to have been oblivious to the significance of what they saw. Still, they saw it, the household was in turmoil for a while, and Tom-Tom disappeared. The older kids had already been gone all week. Suddenly, people are disappearing. What is happening?”
http://theblessingofverity.com/2014/12/catching-up-ii-after/
I think perhaps the second biggest tragedy of Tommy’s death is that no one in the Rescue Adoption seems to be drawing the necessary lesson from it: There really isn’t “Always room for one more.” Love may be infinitely expandable, but time, energy, money and patience aren’t. We’re all human beings, and we have human limitations. We need sufficient sleep every night or our judgement, health and psychological resourcefulness suffer.
Now Susanna Musser is adding another child to the family. See my update.
This is just unbelievable to me. Who on earth would place another special needs child with this family who by their own account is stretched to their limit? I disabled child just died in this home due to lack of adequate supervision!!!!
I have no idea!!Of course, they are begging for handouts again!
I don’t believe they would be pass another home study. Because they are simply the “guardians” they will bring this new child in and continue to passivly put everyone at risk due to lack of resources. I feel badly for Katie, Verity and all the younger children who deserve more time from their mother. I feel badly for the older children who will once again become caregivers and nurses. I simply cannot get my head around the fact that Susanna would think this is a good idea!!
*headdesk* Jesus wept!
I notice they’re hitting up their fan club to cough up the money, materials, and labor to complete the remodeling they need. Isn’t it amazing how God always “provides” through soft-hearted humans with open wallets, rather than, say, inspiring the purchase of winning lottery tickets or miraculously creating a diamond mine on their property or something?
Still, at least they are being somewhat-more-realistic by figuring out what they’re going to need ahead of time and making a plan to get it BEFORE bringing J into their family, even if that “plan” is “start a crowdfunding page”. And J seems to be functioning developmentally on a far higher level than Tommy. Susanna mentions moderate physical impairments, but no intellectual disability.
Still… reading between the lines, this is an adoption from disruption. That implies that J has serious psychological issues (even if they were caused solely by her first APs) which may not be easier to handle than Tommy’s profound developmental problems.
I placed a comment which undoubtedly won’t make it through moderation begging them to reconsider. It probably won’t do any good, but I felt I had to try.
I’m sorry for the long posting but I just have to say this so any potential Susanna’s out there, or friends and spouses of potential Susanna’s, hear it from someone who knows. I am the single mother of a 18 yr. old boy who reminds me very much of Tommy Musser and I cried when I just this week read about his senseless death. Like Tommy my son has CP and the cognitive ability of a toddler, among other issues. He too suffered abuse and neglect that left him the size of child half his chronological age. He is completely incontinent, nonverbal, and non-ambulatory. I can’t explain it all in this post but I just met him for the first time a little over a year ago and brought him home exactly a year ago this month, so I find I can actually relate more to adoptive mothers than I can to natural mothers of SN kids. I love my son dearly with every ounce of my being, and I am deeply devoted to him, and I thank God for giving me a second chance to make his life what it should have been all along. BUT IT IS VERY HARD! I thought I knew what I was getting into when I made the choice to bring him home and care for him but I didn’t really… I couldn’t possibly have known and no one could have possibly fully prepared me. It’s not just the medical issues, insurance companies, doctor appointments, and therapists, It’s all the things that make simple life activities more complicated, like feedings, diapers, wheelchairs, and such. It was like having a newborn the size of a 7 year old those first few weeks. Everything changes and there is always something new to contend with. Even now—and I don’t mean to offend all the higher functioning SN kiddos—but it is very much like caring for a baby. You have to be vigilant every second, and the difference is that he will likely never grow beyond this point, so there’s no looking forward to when they go off to college.
I have faith in God but even if He “opened a door” as Susanna often put it, I would have the God given sense NOT TO WALK THROUGH IT. “Thank you God, but I think I’m going to pass on this one.” No catchy phrase or motivational scripture passage would make me forget how hard it is to mother a child with such profound disabilities.
So here is my point… finally… I would never, ever leave the room—any room—unless he were in a safe place… his crib, securely strapped into a seat, or in an enclosed, child-proofed play area. I would never leave him on a changing table, in a bathtub (even if it had no water), or anywhere else he could crawl freely even though my whole house is super child-proofed. And for the record, I bathe my son using a Rifton bath chair.
And here’s the really important part… the reason I would never leave him is because my judgement is not severely impaired by sleep deprivation, physical and mental exhaustion, and the potential emotional imbalance from pregnancy and postpartum depression. I strongly believe that Suzanna’s judgement that day was impaired, likely due to all three of those reasons. I have only been a mother for a year and I have these very basic things down so I can’t imagine that an experienced mother like her would have left a severely disabled child in the tub for even a moment. I blame your husband and her friends for Tommy’s death because they failed him and Susanna by not having a frank conversation with her. I, a stranger, could see by her writing that she was absolutely depleted and in desperate need of help.
I pray that anyone who sees this happening has the courage and love their friend or spouse to help them.
The Mussers should never have been approved to adopt Tommy. They had eleven kids already and only barely made the income cutoff. To make things worse, Susanna got pregnant shortly after they started the adoption progress.
The home study worker who passed them did so on the grounds that she “knew how large families worked”; i.e., by dragooning older kids into parenting their younger siblings.
The adoption agency told the Mussers that they could proceed with the adoption despite the new baby on the way, despite the fact that another child would probably knock them below the financial threshold of adoption eligibility, not to mention impact their ability to care for a new high needs adoptee.